Don't use an iron-on patch on your Jeep cover!

Jerry Bransford

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So my TJ now lives in the driveway under a better quality cover. My CB antenna wore a hole in the rear of the cover after a couple years so as an iron-on patch fan, that's what I started to fix it with yesterday.

DON'T! The iron darned near instantly melted right through the cover when I went to iron the patch on. DAMMIT! It took 30 minutes to get that hole patched up with silicone, plastic sheeting, and duct tape. I'll laugh over my apparent stupidity later but who woulda thought the damned top fabric would melt. The fabric feels like cloth, it's definitely not vinyl but I don't really know what it is made from.

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In the future you might try double sided carpet tape to apply a patch. That is the strongest stickiest stuff I've ever seen. Cheap at Home Depot. And it will adhere bricks to a wall with enough cushion between two layers. I used to to use 2 pieces of carpet tape with a piece of black pvc foam insulation tape in the middle to help it contour to uneven or rough surfaces. So use one layer of double sided carpet tape, attach that to one layer of PVC insulation tape and then another layer of carpet tape on the other side.

Leaves you with carpet tape on the outside and nice cushiony PVC tape in the middle. And the carpet tape has peel and seal on both sides. You could mount a brick to the side of your Jeep with this and it wouldn't come off. I used it to mount medium size gps units to cars. And it was hard to peel it off. It does come off of hard surfaces that have been painted. But you can mount just about anything - anywhere - with this stuff. I would avoid places with soft paint though. It might take it right off if you ever needed to remove it. It's really more of a permanent solution. It would certainly hold a patch in place on fabric. For sure.

I keep a roll in my tool chest. Like I say it's cheap. And seems to hold better than any 3m foam tape. You can also use it by itself or with the foam middle like I describe above. For a patch on fabric I would just use the carpet tape. It's pretty amazing stuff. Easy to use. And best of all cheap. Get a roll and play with it. You'll come up with a bunch of uses for it.
 
Jerry - The good news is that at least you'll now be able to figure out which end of the cover is which more quickly. 😊 I used to sew a crest (MG, Ford, etc.) on the front of my covers. I got tired of pulling them out of the storage bag and fumbling around with them until I figured out which way they went on.
 
That sucks, those covers aren't cheap and it's not like they fit in a normal sewing machine. My covercraft looks like that and it's polypropylene which melts at 300, below anything but a specialized iron on patch. I never would have guessed.
 
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Remind me never to ask you to do my shirts !! ;) As an extra caution maybe we should also warn you, never try and answer the phone when your ironing lol
 
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Even Jerrys Jeep cover is pressed and starched .

Glad you didn't just drive the whole rig to the dry cleaners.
 
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